List of islands by area

This list of islands by area includes all islands in the world greater than 2,500 km2 (970 sq mi) and several other islands over 500 km2 (193 sq mi), sorted in descending order by area. For comparison, continents are also shown.

Although the continental landmasses listed below are not normally called islands, they are land entirely surrounded by water (excluding the geologically insignificant Suez and Panama Canals). In effect, they are enormous islands and are shown here for that reason. The figures are approximations and are for the continental mainland only. Some people, however, consider mainland Australia to be an island.

Although an island is, in general, any land mass that is completely surrounded by water, some definitions exclude land masses large enough to be considered continents. Placing Australia in the latter category (even though arguments can be made whether it is technically a continent, or merely part of a larger continent also called Australia) makes Greenland the largest island. For the sake of classification, this list of islands begins with Greenland.

^Antarctica is a special case: if its ice is considered not as land, but as water, it is not a single land mass, but several land areas of much smaller area, since the ice-bedrock boundary is below sea level in many regions of the continent. If its ice cover were to be lifted, some rock that is currently below sea level would rise as the weight of the ice would be removed,[1] although this would in part be counteracted, and in some areas of the continent overtaken, by eustatic rises in sea level.[2]

^Australia is more than three times the size of Greenland, the largest island. Australia is sometimes dubbed "The Island Continent", and sometimes accorded the role of "Earth’s largest island but smallest continent".[3]

^It is thought that beneath the ice sheet Greenland may be three separate islands.[5] Whether the places where the ice-bedrock boundary reaches below the sea level are land or sea is a matter of definition. The usual definition is that Greenland is one major island.

^The Republic of China (ROC) is a state commonly referred to as Taiwan. It is also diplomatically occasionally known as Chinese Taipei or other names. The ROC is no longer a United Nations member since late 1971 and regarded by UN as Taiwan, Province of China (see also One-China policy and Political status of Taiwan). It is currently recognized by the Holy See and 23 UN member states and with de facto international relations with most others. Taiwan keeps substantial political, economic, and military relations with the United States, Japan, EU countries among major states. The political status of the ROC and the legal status of Taiwan (alongside the territories under the ROC jurisdiction since 1945) are in dispute. The ROC should not be confused with the People's Republic of China (PRC) which is usually referred to as China, or the Republic of Taiwan proposed by supporters of Taiwan independence.

^The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus claims and controls one third of the island of Cyprus, although this is not recognised by any country except Turkey.